Paul_Crowley2 comments on Imaginary Positions - Less Wrong

19 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 23 December 2008 05:35PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (49)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Paul_Crowley2 24 December 2008 01:46:57AM 6 points [-]

Very recently experienced exactly this phenomenon: someone discussing atheists who think "all religion/religious stuff is bad" to the inclusion of, for example, the music of Bach, or drinking and celebrating at Christmas. They seemed convinced that such atheists exist, and I doubt it, or at least I have never heard of them or met them, and I know for a fact that for example all four horsemen of atheism have made explicit statements to the contrary.

Your disclaimer is an annoying one to have to make, and of course this problem comes up whenever this move is made in discussion; your counterpart says "well, but some singularitarians believe that, don't they?" and you can't actually prove there are none, and you have the sneaking fear that given the vastness of the Internet a judicious Google search might just turn up someone crazy enough to vindicate them; but of course a handful of anonymous loons on the Internet sought specifically for their particular brand of madness does not a position worthy of discussion make.